#58 Harry

Transcript

Speaker 1 Pushkin

Speaker 1 Hey, how are you?

Speaker 2 I'm okay. How are you? I'm okay.

Speaker 3 I'm okay. Hey, calling you want to borrow money.

Speaker 2 Hi. Hi.
So you heard the news.

Speaker 1 Did you read the tweet that I sent you?

Speaker 3 No, actually, I haven't. I've been working all day, and

Speaker 4 I haven't had a chance to.

Speaker 1 Can I read you the tweet from the heavyweight account that we put out?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 It's heavyweight as it exists under Spotify will be ending after this season. We're so proud of everything we've made, and we're hoping the show finds a new home in the future.

Speaker 1 Till then, stay tuned, stay subscribed, and thank you all so much for your love and support.

Speaker 1 No, things are going to be okay. You know what? Because

Speaker 1 it's show business. You know that song from the Bugs Bunny?

Speaker 2 Oh, please.

Speaker 1 Overtures, turn the lights. You know that song?

Speaker 2 This is it, the night of nights.

Speaker 1 No more re-hoicing and noising of parts.

Speaker 2 We know every part by heart.

Speaker 1 It's about going on with the show.

Speaker 3 How are you going to go on with the show?

Speaker 1 We're going to try to find a new place for it. You know, we have an obligation to our listeners.

Speaker 2 Why does that make you laugh? I have an obligation to my listeners.

Speaker 1 Wait, let's just sit here together and think about all the laughter through the years.

Speaker 1 You're such an idiot.

Speaker 3 Can I hang up now?

Speaker 5 Can I hang up now?

Speaker 1 Okay. And you know what?

Speaker 2 You're going to be okay.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be okay. And you know what? You're going to be okay.
We're going to keep on doing this.

Speaker 6 I wanted to go to it.

Speaker 3 This is my, this is my, I'm signing off.

Speaker 1 I don't think you are.

Speaker 2 I don't believe it.

Speaker 1 I think you love doing this.

Speaker 2 Am I right?

Speaker 1 Just admit it and I'll let you go.

Speaker 2 Goodbye. Hey, Jackie.
Jackie. Jackie?

Speaker 1 Thank you for these past eight years.

Speaker 1 Oh, show off.

Speaker 3 Like, I'm still milking it.

Speaker 1 I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Harry.

Speaker 2 Right after the break.

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Speaker 9 This is Malcolm Glaubo from Medal of Honor Stories of Courage.

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Speaker 1 Our story begins with two people, Ted and Todd. Or is it Todd and Ted?

Speaker 1 In the plaid shirt, you are Ted? Yes. And you're Todd.
That's correct. Okay, hi.
Nice to meet you both. Ted and Todd are identical twins, but not the Mary Kate and Ashley cutie-patooty type.

Speaker 1 They're They're more the slappy, happy, punchy-grumpy type.

Speaker 1 If you hit me one more time, case in point, that was the sound of Ted reacting to Todd, who, for no apparent reason, just whacked his brother in the arm.

Speaker 1 Is that a part of the way that you guys

Speaker 2 communicate? Yeah, uh-huh.

Speaker 1 But if I'm not here, I mean, you don't, you don't punch each other, right?

Speaker 2 Not anymore, no. Not anymore, no.

Speaker 1 Ted and Todd are in their 60s. They both have long white hair and the stoic deadpan affect of hitmen in a Cormac McCarthy novel.
They grew up in South Dakota surrounded by literal cowboys.

Speaker 1 Before the interview, they asked if there'd be cigarette breaks. They both smoke palm malls, drink Keystone Lights, and they both work as contractors.

Speaker 1 They tell me they can't go into a Home Depot together without being asked the same asinine question.

Speaker 1 Are you guys twins? In response, Ted and Todd stare back blankly.

Speaker 1 But the story Ted and Todd are here to tell isn't actually about their twinship. It's about their younger brother, Scott, who died in 2000.

Speaker 1 Do you want to start off by maybe talking to me a little bit about Scott?

Speaker 2 Go ahead.

Speaker 2 Well, just here's our little brother, and

Speaker 2 that was about it.

Speaker 1 To spare you 20 odd minutes of coaxing and cajoling, I'll fast forward a bit to let you know that Scott was a year younger than Ted and Todd.

Speaker 1 He was the baby of the family, and they often ended up taking care of him. As older brothers, Ted and Todd were measured and steady.
Scott, on the other hand, was fun and colorful.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, yeah, real bright personality. I mean, he was just definitely his own individual for sure.
Yeah, he got all the personality.

Speaker 1 In school, Scott attracted attention, and not all of it good. This because in addition to his big personality, Scott was gay.

Speaker 1 From a pretty young age, he was a target for bullying, but Ted and Todd always kept an eye out.

Speaker 2 You couldn't go after our little brother because then you're going to have to deal with

Speaker 2 both of us. So one offense, you're going to have three events.

Speaker 2 It's not because we liked it. We were protecting our family.

Speaker 1 In spite of the haters, Scott remained a force to be reckoned with.

Speaker 1 As a teenager, he once got into their dad's Lincoln Continental in the middle of the night and drove it almost a thousand miles across state lines.

Speaker 2 At 15, I mean, that tells you how independent Betty really was. Yeah, strong-headed.

Speaker 1 While Ted and Todd got married and settled down, Scott maintained his impish spontaneity, doing things like buying Ted and Todd's kids the candy they weren't allowed.

Speaker 1 Or once, having promised his seven-year-old nephew a trip to the circus and then breaking his leg, made sure they could still go by teaching his nephew how to pump the clutch.

Speaker 1 Scott led a nomadic life. Every so often, Ted and Todd would get a phone call.
Scott was in Roanoke, Virginia, living with friends. Scott was in Nebraska going to mortician school.

Speaker 1 Scott had crashed his car in the desert outside of Phoenix. But no matter where he went and no matter how old he got, if Scott was in trouble, Ted and Todd's phones would ring.

Speaker 1 So one day in the fall of 1986, when Todd received a call from Scott at 3 a.m., he wasn't all that surprised.

Speaker 59 He wanted me to come down and get him now, which was not unusual.

Speaker 1 Scott told Todd he was in the hospital. When Todd got there, he was directed to a special ward.

Speaker 59 And pretty obvious something was wrong. And I walked in, and there must have been six other beds in there.
Probably he was

Speaker 59 the youngest. And at that point, he would have been in his early 20s.

Speaker 59 And

Speaker 59 everybody had gowns and masks and gloves and shields. And I mean, it was really bizarre.
I'm like, what is happening?

Speaker 59 And they said, you weren't aware of your brother's diagnosis. And that's when they said, your brother has AIDS.

Speaker 1 Scott wanted to get out of the hospital as quickly as possible. So Todd just put him in the car and drove him home.
Never did they talk about AIDS or what it meant. They didn't talk much at all.

Speaker 1 Ted and Todd would call to check on Scott as often as they could. They'd ask if he was going to the doctor, taking his meds.
Are you taking care of it, they'd say. Yeah, he'd say.

Speaker 1 And for the next few years, this is how it went. Until the day Harry arrived.

Speaker 1 Todd was on the phone checking in on Scott like usual when he first heard her voice.

Speaker 2 This thing in the background is like, what is that?

Speaker 1 That was Harriet, aka

Speaker 1 Harry. A red and green parrot.
A three-foot-long macaw to be exact. Ted and Todd, of course, had questions.
Questions like,

Speaker 2 What the hell are you thinking?

Speaker 1 Scott had always loved unusual pets. As a kid, he kept a squirrel in the house and even a bat.
But there was something particularly worrying about adopting adopting a parrot. Its longevity.

Speaker 2 You have this disease.

Speaker 2 We don't know how long you're going to live and you buy an animal that's going to last 85 to 100 years.

Speaker 1 Even for a healthy adult, such a purchase would mean a commitment that lasts into old age. In Scott's case, it felt like an act of denial.

Speaker 2 What Scott did was what Scott always does. Just, I'm going to do what I'm going to do, and I like it, and I want it, and that's how it's going to be, and it's going to be fine.

Speaker 1 And so Harry was suddenly a fact of their family's life. Wherever Scott went, there was Harry.
And in time, she won Ted and Todd over with her rowdy antics and foul-mouthed turns of phrase.

Speaker 2 You son of a bitch, Scott, come here, you know, da-da-da, what's for dinner?

Speaker 1 Ted and Todd had five kids between them, all of whom adored their cool uncle and his crazy bird. They would take road trips together, Harry glued to Scott's shoulder.

Speaker 1 When they went to get dinner and left Harry in the hotel room, she'd scream, Scott, you fucker, annoyed to be left out of the fun.

Speaker 1 Harry was loyal to Scott and protective, too. She'd nibble at the shunt in Scott's chest like it was a splinter that needed removal.

Speaker 1 As time went on, it became increasingly clear that Scott's diagnosis was taking a toll. One day, when Ted and Todd called to check in, Something felt off.

Speaker 2 He's just devoid of personality, just like, oh, wait, whoa, whoa, I want to talk to you. He goes, I'm just, I'm not feeling it, Todd.

Speaker 2 And the last time I talked to him, he just said, I said, what's going on with you? And he said, I'm done.

Speaker 1 A few days later, Scott died.

Speaker 1 He was 38 years old.

Speaker 1 Ted and Todd rushed out to California. Their mom, who'd been living with Scott, was devastated.

Speaker 2 Because obviously she'd lost her son and her baby, her youngest at that.

Speaker 2 And then you've got Harry that was mimicking my little brother's voice and, you know, would call mom, mom.

Speaker 1 Harry grew unmoored, getting aggressive with their mother and anyone else who tried to handle her.

Speaker 1 The only people who she'd let touch her, the only ones she felt safe with, were the ones who most resembled Scott. That is, Scott's brothers.

Speaker 59 She was fine with Ted and I. When we would get get there, she would just cock her head and look at she'd say, Scott?

Speaker 1 In those moments, it felt like Ted, Todd, and Harry all shared some understanding. That word, Scott, was like a secret handshake.

Speaker 1 Before his death, Scott told Ted and Todd he wanted to leave Harry to Todd's eldest son, who was in junior high at the time. But Todd knew that keeping her...
just wasn't realistic.

Speaker 59 I had to tell my son, it's just, it wouldn't be fair to Harry. It wouldn't be fair to you because to own a macaw, I don't think people fully understand.

Speaker 59 I mean, they get angry, they can be destructive. You know, if you ever see their claws or their beak, you don't want any party, the business end of those.

Speaker 59 But she was chewing into the ceiling, into the attic.

Speaker 59 I mean, they're a wild animal.

Speaker 1 And so they approached Harry's longtime groomer for help finding her a home. She offered to bring Harry to a nearby bird sanctuary, or was it a pet store?

Speaker 1 Ted and Todd were so overwhelmed by Scott's death that they can't quite remember which.

Speaker 1 They do remember, though, the day of her departure, how their kids watched in tears as Harry, their beloved uncle's beloved pet, was taken away.

Speaker 1 They remember how Harry seemed to understand what was happening, how she howled.

Speaker 2 Her wings were everywhere and she was very. The kids were upset.
And she was yelling at us.

Speaker 2 It was just, it was panemonium.

Speaker 2 It was heartbreaking. Yeah, it was tough.

Speaker 1 At this point, Ted and Todd haven't seen Harry in over 20 years, but they do know one thing.

Speaker 2 This bird could still be out there.

Speaker 1 And so Ted and Todd have come to me with these questions. Is she still out there? And if so, did they do the right thing in giving her up?

Speaker 1 Why do you think you're looking for Harry now?

Speaker 2 We always took care of our little brother, and that's the one thing we didn't take care of.

Speaker 1 Ted and Todd had taken care of their brothers since they were children. Making sure Harry was provided for was the last thing Scott needed from them, and it's the only thing they couldn't do.

Speaker 1 Ted, do you feel guilt about it?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 1 okay, can you say more about that?

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 1 it's difficult to talk about.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it is. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 knowing that Harry was okay,

Speaker 1 what would that bring to you?

Speaker 2 We'd just be happy to know she's fine.

Speaker 1 And emotionally?

Speaker 2 I don't really deal with that.

Speaker 60 There's a part of them that doesn't want to talk about it at all.

Speaker 1 This is Hannah, Ted's daughter-in-law. Because Ted and Todd are such a closed book, She's offered to help translate them for me.

Speaker 1 Hannah tells me that through Harry, Ted and Todd can broach a subject they wouldn't otherwise know how to approach. And doing that might allow them to forgive themselves.

Speaker 60 So it's almost like they can talk about Harry in a way that's easier than talking about Scott. It's kind of like a surrogate.
I think there's just a lot of pain in the death of their brother.

Speaker 60 Like what I heard from Chase is that the one time that they've seen their dads cry is when their brother died.

Speaker 61 Yeah.

Speaker 1 This is Chase, Ted's son and Hannah's husband.

Speaker 61 They had no control over it. I'm sure they couldn't make him take his medicine or do the thing he was supposed to do as far as getting rest or going to the doctors.

Speaker 61 And like, they couldn't go beat up aides.

Speaker 1 When it came to their brother's death, actions finally failed them. And actions, Hannah and Chase say, are the language Ted and Todd have for showing how they feel.

Speaker 1 Hannah says she can always tell when Ted and Todd have stopped by because some drywall will be sanded down or she'll notice a fresh coat of paint.

Speaker 60 They also always unplug my toaster because they don't want to catch fire. So you can always tell when they've been here because the toaster is unplugged.

Speaker 60 They're always sort of taking care of you. You just go to your house and realize, oh, they've been here and they've like taken care of some stuff.

Speaker 1 Cowboy style.

Speaker 60 Yeah, cowboy style. That's exactly it.

Speaker 1 Hannah and Chase worry, though, that in cowboy style too, they suffer in silence.

Speaker 60 Because I love them. I hope for them that if we found Harry, it could they could heal more from Scott's death.

Speaker 5 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I think it would just be nice to know that she's doing good.

Speaker 61 That like

Speaker 61 she's like with people who let her cuss and do whatever she wants, kind of like an outlaw, yeah,

Speaker 61 living like the outlaw life.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's exactly it.

Speaker 1 All right, well, uh, I'm gonna do my best here. I'm gonna try to find Harry.

Speaker 2 That would be good.

Speaker 2 Okay.

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Speaker 1 Armed with an old photograph of Harry, I set out on my search.

Speaker 1 Since Ted and Todd don't quite remember exactly exactly where they surrendered Harry, I begin my quest to find this bird of paradise by phoning...

Speaker 6 Birds in Paradise!

Speaker 1 Birds in Paradise is a pet store in Southern California, not far from where Scott lived.

Speaker 1 The owner, Lori, has had the store for decades and is an active member of the Southern California parrot community. If anyone would know how to find Harry, it seems like it would be Lori.

Speaker 1 So I explained to her the project, to find a bright red toddler-sized parrot named Harry who curses like a French sailor.

Speaker 5 It's completely impossible.

Speaker 1 But like isn't the macaw community in the area small enough that people would maybe through word of mouth be able to finds and thousands and thousands and thousands of macaws in this world.

Speaker 1 And it turns out, it's difficult to tell one macaw from another, even for an expert like Lori.

Speaker 6 And you don't know if, you know, something has happened to the bird, if it's been rehomed again.

Speaker 1 Is there any resources that you can recommend?

Speaker 5 Well, you could.

Speaker 6 I mean, that's what the internet's about.

Speaker 6 Do a Google search.

Speaker 1 I try to explain to Lori that that's what the problem is. I've nothing to Google search for.
But Lori is insistent. It's just common sense, she says.

Speaker 1 With the internet, you can simply Google search for whatever it is that you should be Google searching for.

Speaker 6 With the internet nowadays, it does make things a lot easier. I mean, say I met a man and I was possibly interested in him.
First thing I would do is I'd do a search on him.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 6 Okay, I'll put it this way. I met a man at Disneyland a few months ago and seemed like a really nice guy and gave me his business card.
He was a police officer. Okay.

Speaker 6 And I found out that police officer is married.

Speaker 2 Oh, my.

Speaker 6 And so I let him know that I knew he was married and I thought it was wrong what he was doing and I never spoke to him again.

Speaker 1 But you told him that you confronted him. Good for you.

Speaker 6 That's the kind of person I am.

Speaker 1 I tell Lori that while I respect her sleuthing, her take-no prisoner style, and the internet as a whole, I don't know that any of this will help Ted and Todd. So Lori offers one last glimmer of hope.

Speaker 6 They'll find out when they die one day and go to heaven if anything happened to that bird.

Speaker 2 That's beautiful.

Speaker 1 In the end, I do turn to the internet, using it like it's 1995 all over again, and I just got an AOL complimentary CD-ROM in the mail.

Speaker 1 I joined Facebook groups like The Parrot Posse and Lost and Found Cockatiels and Other Bird Companions.

Speaker 1 I even bookmark a site called The Big List of National and International Bird Clubs. But that all yields nothing.
So, as if it's 1895 all over again, ahoy hoy, I turn to the telephone.

Speaker 3 Thank you for calling Annie's mobile bird for me.

Speaker 34 Hi, John.

Speaker 66 This is Gail Brad Bird's Boys Parrot Education. The Landing Zone Parrot Sanctuary gives a permanent home.

Speaker 5 I only have one macaw.

Speaker 1 Is it red by any chance?

Speaker 5 No, blue and gold.

Speaker 1 Of everyone I speak with, nobody has seen any trace of Harry, and nobody believes I'll ever be able to find her.

Speaker 1 To what do I owe the pleasure of this invitation? But then one day, my producer Mona puts a meeting on my calendar.

Speaker 7 As you know, we've been trying to find this parrot.

Speaker 2 Oh, I know.

Speaker 1 I do know that.

Speaker 7 And I've been casting a wider and wider net because I feel like the feedback we've been getting is that like, it's just like a shot in the dark.

Speaker 1 That's a very generous appraisal of what we've been getting. Because to me, it feels like it's been more like, no, this is insane.
You are not going to find this bird. Stop trying to find this bird.

Speaker 5 Sure.

Speaker 1 Mona explains that she's been poking around on pet databases.

Speaker 7 And I found some other parrots who kind of like had similar stories and looked old. And there was this one that came from this.

Speaker 1 What makes a parrot look old?

Speaker 2 I think you can tell.

Speaker 1 You're getting too deep.

Speaker 2 They look grizzled.

Speaker 1 Should I be concerned?

Speaker 2 Okay, just please stay with me.

Speaker 1 Mona tells me her deep dive turned up a sanctuary we haven't tried yet.

Speaker 7 It's called Oasis.

Speaker 1 On the Oasis website, each of the hundreds of birds they house has its own profile page. Mona looked through every single one.

Speaker 7 And that is when I found this.

Speaker 1 Oh man.

Speaker 5 Uh

Speaker 2 God.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 1 don't know what to say.

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Speaker 67 This is Tim Harford from Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. It's 1972.
A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes.

Speaker 67 Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds. All they have left is a life raft and each other.
How will they survive?

Speaker 67 The true story of a family's fight for survival, hosted by Becky Milligan. This is Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House.

Speaker 67 Apple TV subscribers get special early access to the entire season. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 1 So this is a red macaw named Harry.

Speaker 1 Look at the right wing.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 1 Oh, and look at the rings around the eye. Oh, no, even the beak is similarly.
Oh, this is compelling. This Harry looks identical to the photo of Harry that Ted and Todd sent me.

Speaker 1 So you have not called the Oasis Sanctuary yet?

Speaker 7 I have not. I was thinking maybe we could do that now.

Speaker 6 The Oasis Sanctuary.

Speaker 1 This is Janet Trumbull, director of the Oasis.

Speaker 1 With great excitement, I explain my quest. And his macaw was also named Harry.

Speaker 2 Oh.

Speaker 1 And so we begin comparing Harry's. The Harry who lives at the Oasis, Janet tells me, arrived there as a Harry.

Speaker 6 Yep, he even says his name Harry.

Speaker 2 Really?

Speaker 6 Yeah. So I know when we walk up to Harry, he always says, hi, Harry.

Speaker 1 Janet refers to Harry as a he because she's done a DNA test.

Speaker 1 She says that otherwise, it's nearly impossible to determine a parrot's biological sex, so it would be understandable if Scott thought Harry a her.

Speaker 1 I asked Janet what else she can tell me about Harry.

Speaker 6 So he came to us from California.

Speaker 5 Oh.

Speaker 1 Not just California, Janet says. but southern California, an hour and a half away from Yucca Valley, where Scott had lived.

Speaker 1 It seems Harry was taken in by a family with young children who teased and harassed him.

Speaker 1 In their care, he grew increasingly aggressive, and so they had no choice but to surrender him to a woman in the area who fostered difficult birds. Eventually, she brought Harry to the oasis.

Speaker 6 She guessed his age at 22.

Speaker 5 I don't know how.

Speaker 24 Okay, okay.

Speaker 6 He arrived in 2020.

Speaker 1 Our Harry hatched in the late 90s, so 22 in 2020 lines up perfectly.

Speaker 1 Janet, that would be it.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 Well, this is

Speaker 1 very unexpected.

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 it's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 We found a macaw whose name is Harry, who's the right age and who's from the right place.

Speaker 1 So I get back in touch with Ted, Todd, and the rest of the family.

Speaker 2 Hi. Hi, hi, hi.
Hello.

Speaker 1 It's nice to see you all. I tell them about everything I've been up to over the last few months.
The sanctuaries and bird groomers, the pet stores, Lori's Disneyland Gigolo.

Speaker 1 And finally, I show them the photo of the Harry who lives at Janet's Sanctuary in Arizona.

Speaker 1 Do you believe that this is Harry?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I do.

Speaker 2 That's Harry. That's all they do.
That's the first thing I thought of.

Speaker 1 Ted and Todd are convinced this is Harry. But as a freshly minted bird journalist, I can't yet make the call.
As Lori told me, individual macaws are nearly impossible for people to identify.

Speaker 1 They all look the same. Birds, on the other hand, can tell humans apart just fine.
So to truly confirm that this Harry is our Harry, we need to know whether he recognizes Ted and Todd.

Speaker 1 And for that, there's really only one thing to do.

Speaker 1 I guess what I'm winding up to here is I've Google mapped the bird sanctuary oasis from this studio.

Speaker 1 It's a 14-hour road trip.

Speaker 1 I'm not suggesting that, you know, you leave right now and we hit the road like Muppet movie style,

Speaker 1 but would you want to go there?

Speaker 2 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 Chase, is this Ted and Todd when they're excited? You're getting like pinata happiness here, I think, with these two.

Speaker 2 It's hotter than hell in Arizona in July.

Speaker 2 But yeah.

Speaker 1 After the break, 800 miles to see about a bird.

Speaker 11 Best network based on analysis by UCLA of Speed Test Intelligence Data 1H 2025.

Speaker 56 This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine

Speaker 67 This is Tim Harford from Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. It's 1972.
A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes.

Speaker 67 Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds. All they have left is a life raft and each other.
How will they survive? The true story of a family's fight for survival.

Speaker 67 Hosted by Becky Milligan. This is Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House.
Apple TV subscribers get special early access to the entire season.

Speaker 67 Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 2 All right, we're here.

Speaker 1 Ultimately, there was no road trip. Instead, the family decided to fly to Arizona.
Ted and Todd said it was the first time they've flown in nearly three decades.

Speaker 1 The last had been for their father's funeral. Ted and Todd, Todd, Chase, Hannah, Todd's daughter, Jessica, and two grandkids all meet me in a Tucson Walmart parking lot.

Speaker 65 And then Ted and Todd jumped out because they were anxious to get out of Christmas.

Speaker 2 Where are they smoking? Where by the propane tanks.

Speaker 1 Are you serious by the propane tanks?

Speaker 1 Hannah, as it turns out, is serious.

Speaker 1 I find Ted and Todd sucking down Paul Maul's, indeed, beside the propane tanks, which, thankfully, are empty.

Speaker 2 Oh, looking humid.

Speaker 2 It's humid.

Speaker 1 As people pass by, they can't help staring a little too long at the two identical men, tall and slim with long white hair.

Speaker 1 For Ted and Todd, who shy away from the limelight in all of its forms, who hate to be the focus of attention, to be so notable must be a special kind of hell.

Speaker 1 The rubberneckers rubberneck while Ted and Todd flash identical expressions on their identical faces. A look of complete blankness.

Speaker 1 Cigarettes smoked, we all pile into Ted and Todd's SUV.

Speaker 1 From here, the Oasis and Harry are about 45 minutes away.

Speaker 65 Hi. Nice to meet you.

Speaker 2 Hi, Todd. Hi, Janet.
Hi, Ted.

Speaker 1 Nice to meet you. Janet greets us at the entrance of the sanctuary.

Speaker 2 All right, well, let's go ahead and go inside. So I'm thinking.

Speaker 1 The oasis is home to 22 separate aviaries housing hundreds of tropical birds, almost all of which, amazingly, Janet knows by name.

Speaker 65 This is Bubbles.

Speaker 65 He's a Patagonian conyer.

Speaker 1 There's Cosmo, Tootsie, Molly, Sammy, Toby, and Modine. There's Oscar, a blue and gold macaw, who, Janet tells us, recently lost her mate.
And Congo and Timmy, a pair of African greys.

Speaker 1 There are two greenwings, Tango and Cash, named for the Sylvester Stallone Kurt Russell film about two mismatched LAPD officers.

Speaker 1 But while that Tango and Cash enjoy shooting off firearms and punching people in the face, this Tango and Cash enjoy eating honeydew and filberts.

Speaker 1 Somewhere among all these birds is Harry.

Speaker 65 I was just saying when you guys pulled up, Harry was screaming.

Speaker 1 Do you think there is a chance that Harry will recognize these guys?

Speaker 2 It's very possible.

Speaker 65 It's hard to say. And because he's not a cuddly bird, you know,

Speaker 65 I'll have to kind of read his body language.

Speaker 1 As we get closer to Harry's enclosure, we suddenly hear

Speaker 1 Harry.

Speaker 2 Harry. Hi, Harry.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Hi, Harry.

Speaker 1 And there he is, shuffling around on a tree branch.

Speaker 1 Throughout this whole quest, with all the phone calls and internet searching, I'd forgotten how beautiful these birds are.

Speaker 1 Harry's feathers are so vivid, he makes the world around him seem black and white. Harry looks like Saturday morning cartoons, 10,000 crayons, a sunset, and a room full of gauguins, all set on fire.

Speaker 1 Looking at him, it makes sense that the most colorful brother would choose a most colorful pet.

Speaker 1 But seated right beside Harry, almost wing to wing, is another very similar-looking bird. It turns out that this is Harry's mate, Valentina.

Speaker 1 Harry met Valentina eight years ago at the Refuge for Difficult Birds. They came to the oasis together, and Janet says Harry and Valentina are inseparable.

Speaker 65 Yep, they're always like that, right together. And you can see he's being very protective of her.

Speaker 65 They have bonded

Speaker 65 very very strong bonds, so we won't ever separate those two.

Speaker 1 Harry sidles up to Valentina, and as he draws closer, I can see that while Harry is indeed beautiful, his feathers are ruffled and patchy, and his tail is shredded.

Speaker 1 Janet says the loss of feathers is something he's done to himself. It's a behavior called plucking.

Speaker 65 It's very common for parrots in captivity to pick.

Speaker 1 She says plucking can start when birds are stressed or frustrated or grieving.

Speaker 65 They do definitely grieve, yeah, because their bonds are very deep.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's hard to tell how Janet's words are affecting Ted and Todd, but I suspect it might be adding to their guilt, exacerbating their own tendency to pluck at the many should-haves and could-haves.

Speaker 2 Talk to him. See if he...

Speaker 65 He remembers you.

Speaker 1 We all step back and allow Ted and Todd space to approach. All eyes are on them.

Speaker 1 And with all the self-consciousness of two self-conscious men who must address a bird before a crowd of family and near strangers, they begin.

Speaker 2 Hello, Harry.

Speaker 2 How are you?

Speaker 2 That's not the shoe one.

Speaker 65 See, now she's responding.

Speaker 1 Harry's body language shifts. He leans towards Ted and Todd.

Speaker 65 See how he's sitting forward?

Speaker 2 It's okay.

Speaker 65 Look at him. He's just looking at him.

Speaker 2 You're okay.

Speaker 65 So I see some recognition there.

Speaker 1 It looks like we found our bird.

Speaker 1 Harry starts to come closer, but Valentina reaches forward with her beak and tugs on his feathers.

Speaker 65 It looks like Valentina

Speaker 65 keeps pulling him back, is what I've seen. Like he does want to engage, but then she says no and gives him a little nip.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she looks like she's getting upset.

Speaker 2 We can leave you alone.

Speaker 2 We can let you be, buddy.

Speaker 1 Ted and Todd are reluctant to be a nuisance. They decide to leave the enclosure, and we all file out behind them.

Speaker 1 At last, Ted and Todd have found Harry. And although worse for wear, he's okay.

Speaker 1 Still, Ted and Todd don't seem satisfied.

Speaker 2 I think I just felt like, you know, you're.

Speaker 2 It's just disappointing.

Speaker 1 It's like they were hoping for something more, something closer to forgiveness. But what does forgiveness from a bird even look like?

Speaker 2 Let's go ahead and get out of here.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I hate everybody watching.

Speaker 2 I hated everybody watching.

Speaker 65 Well, shall we go on?

Speaker 1 Half-heartedly, Ted and Todd acquiesce, and Janet continues the tour.

Speaker 1 She shows us the monk parakeets, who look nothing like Tony Shaloub.

Speaker 65 Smaller species, Conyers, Quakers.

Speaker 1 She shows us the lovebirds, of whom I consider asking Janet if she's ever caught making whoopee.

Speaker 65 Lovebirds can be extremely aggressive.

Speaker 1 But reconsider. And she shows us a rose-breasted cockatoo, the Samantha Jones of the aviary.

Speaker 2 I love men.

Speaker 2 I love men. Come in here.

Speaker 1 While I'm having the time of my life watching nature's drones, all throughout the tour, Ted and Todd lag behind.

Speaker 1 It's only while engrossed by a parrot named Lady Gray and her ability to repeat the word cracker.

Speaker 2 Cracker?

Speaker 2 Did you hear that? Cracker?

Speaker 2 Cracker?

Speaker 1 That I look around and see that Ted and Todd have disappeared. It's only later on when reviewing the tape that I realize where they disappeared to.

Speaker 2 I walk up and see Harry one last time.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Without the horde.

Speaker 1 Ted and Todd had doubled back to see Harry.

Speaker 2 Without the horde.

Speaker 2 Hi, guys. Hello, Harry.

Speaker 2 Where'd this girlfriend go?

Speaker 2 She's back over the house. Oh there she is.

Speaker 1 This time when Ted and Todd show up, just the two of them, Valentina stands back and Harry makes his way down the branch. He seems to feel safe.

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 1 And Ted and Todd seem to feel safe too. Without the expectant eyes of the group upon them, They can finally ask the question they really want to ask, that they've flown across the country for.

Speaker 2 Remember Scott?

Speaker 2 See that.

Speaker 1 He's watching.

Speaker 1 Harry doesn't respond. But then, Todd has an idea.

Speaker 2 Harry, you son of a bitch.

Speaker 1 He starts cursing like a constipated French sailor.

Speaker 2 Do it again, Todd. God damn it, Harry.

Speaker 2 God damn it, Harry. Come here.
Harry, come here.

Speaker 1 Harry takes a couple more leery steps steps down his branch.

Speaker 1 It sounded like Scott, says Ted.

Speaker 1 Now, at this point, I've listened back to this tape hundreds of times.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure what I hear.

Speaker 1 It does kind of sound like he's saying Scott.

Speaker 2 Sort of.

Speaker 1 But I guess it doesn't matter what I hear. What matters is what Ted and Todd hear.
And it seems like they hear forgiveness.

Speaker 2 I'm glad you're okay.

Speaker 2 Can I leave him alone?

Speaker 2 Yeah, probably.

Speaker 2 Bye, Harry.

Speaker 2 Say bye.

Speaker 2 Bye.

Speaker 1 The two near-identical men wave goodbye to the two near-identical birds.

Speaker 2 I'm glad he's doing all right.

Speaker 2 Get us.

Speaker 1 And with that, Ted and Todd go back to the group, and Harry and Valentina go back to living that outlaw life.

Speaker 1 In the end, Harry has something neither Ted nor Todd nor any human could have given him. He's paired in this world with one of his own.

Speaker 1 Of all people, Ted and Todd should be able to appreciate that.

Speaker 1 And so, with this last deed for their brother done, there's only one last deed to do.

Speaker 2 Do you have a cigarette with you?

Speaker 2 Let's go back over here.

Speaker 2 They're gonna give us a bunch of shit about it.

Speaker 2 I don't know what to do with these shirts. No fucking pockets, no this.
Hats.

Speaker 2 Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home

Speaker 2 Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damaged deposit

Speaker 2 Take this moment to decide

Speaker 2 if we meant it if we tried

Speaker 1 This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Phoebe Flanagan, Mohini McGowker, and me, Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is Kalila Holt.
Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane.

Speaker 1 Special thanks to Mimi O'Donnell, Lauren Silverman, and Catherine Brewer. And special thanks, as always, to the one and only Jackie Cohen.
Editorial guidance from Emily Condon.

Speaker 1 Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, and Bobby Lord.

Speaker 1 Additional music credits can be found on our website, gimletmedia.com/slash heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records.

Speaker 1 Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or on Instagram at heavyweight podcast. And we have a new email address, heavyweightshow at gmail.com.

Speaker 1 As you may have heard, heard, this is our last episode as a show with Spotify. It's been eight years.
I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 But we're looking for a new home, and I have a feeling we're going to be back soon. So please stay tuned, stay subscribed, and truly thank you for all the great years.

Speaker 1 Play us out, weaker than.

Speaker 1 Sun in an empty room.

Speaker 1 Sun in an empty room

Speaker 1 Sun in an empty room Take eight minutes and divide

Speaker 1 by ninety million lonely miles

Speaker 1 and watch a shadow cross the floor

Speaker 1 We don't live here anymore

Speaker 2 I'd be entirely shocked if this thing even ever airs. If If what? If this thing ever airs.
Oh, yeah, I wouldn't think so.

Speaker 55 Learn more at don't sleep on osa.com.

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Speaker 68 PrEP can be about 99% effective when taken as prescribed. It doesn't protect against other STIs though, so be sure to use condoms and other healthy sex practices.

Speaker 2 Ask a healthcare provider about all your prevention options and visit findoutaboutprep.com to learn more. Sponsored by Gilead.
Hey, audiobook lovers. I'm Cal Penn.
I'm Ed Helms.

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